Research

Below is a list of research papers, reports and other publications from Ekklesia dating back to 2004. Click on the title for more information on each publication, and a link through to the item itself where available. You might also like to sign up for our award winning weekly research bulletin which will ensure you are kept up-to-date with the very latest research from Ekklesia.

The Scottish Government’s consultation on the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Bill ended on 20 March 2013. In its submission, Ekklesia backed the proposal to to introduce same sex marriage and religious and belief registration of civil partnership - while emphasising that our overall preference would be to distinguish legal marriage as a civil provision from religious or belief blessings and recognition.

A new churches' report (published by by the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Church of Scotland, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church, through their Joint Public Issues Team) shows how evidence and statistics have been misused, misrepresented and manipulated to create untruths that stigmatise poor people, welfare recipients and those in receipt of benefits. Ekklesia has not been involved in the commissioning or production of this report, but as a thinktank working on welfare issues and advocating a major shift of public policy towards the needs, concerns and skills of marginalised people in society, we are pleased to endorse and publicise it.

Recently (January 2013) the We Can End Hunger IF campaign, backed by 100 NGOs and development agencies, was launched in preparation for issues coming up at the forthcoming G8 summit. Here Ekklesia co-director Simon Barrow offers a positively critical evaluation of the initiative, including PDFs of the IF report and executive summary and an overview of its sixteen core demands, together with additional commentary and resources on hunger, land, tax, and global development.

This detailed briefing on the Employment and Support Allowance (Amendment) Regulations 2012, reference 2012 No. 3096, has been produced by a professional disabled community made up of campaigners, academics and freelancers, listed in full below. It is being published on their behalf by Ekklesia and disability campaigner and project leader Sue Marsh. It demonstrates that:

1. While these regulations are presented as minor clarifications, they in fact represent fundamental changes in how capability for work is to be assessed.
2. There are positive changes to allow more cases to be placed in the Support Group without full assessment. However, these are overshadowed by changes that will clearly reduce entitlement overall.
3. The problems fall into two areas, likely to lead to claimants’ capability being overestimated:a. The assumptions that can be made by an assessor.b. What symptoms can be considered in which parts of the assessment.

Ekklesia welcomes the stated intent of the Scottish Government and the Land Reform Review Group to develop “innovative and radical proposals” on land reform to benefit the widest possible range of people and the environment in Scotland. This is our brief submission to the LRRG, setting out in summary (a) the need to address historic and present inequity in the distribution and use of land; (b) our understanding of what constitutes meaningful land reform; and (c) specific reforms that we support in this area.